TSC White Friendly

TSC White Game 0-1 loss
This being our third match against TSC in this season we have a pretty good feel for each others game. I knew going into the game they were going to try and run the seems down the middle they new we were going to work the outside on the attack. Our game plan going in was to have our middle defenders give up more depth and not try to set up the off sides traps. I also told the girls to expect some deep penetration at times and the best way to over come this would be to play hard out of the back or when we cleared the ball and gained possession we had to push up quickly.
On the attack I really challenged our midfielders to penetrate in order to put pressure on the middle since they would be over playing the outside on us. As well as to take shots out side the 18 in order to put pressure on the goal.
Individually I thought TSC did a better job of going after and winning the 50-50 balls. Although the game was not as physical as the past games we have played we did play very tentative for a majority of the game.
I also thought TSC did a better job of timing their passes. We took one too many touches at times before make the open field pass. That one extra touch either resulted in an opportunity being killed because the defense recovered or a turn over because we telegraphed the pass.

The goal we gave up was a real break down from the thrown in from out of bounds down to the in ability to clear the ball. TSC did a great job of keeping the pressure going at the right time. We had a chances a few times in the second half to duplicate this same thing to TSC but we failed to keep the pressure on and finish. (We are working on this).

By position I thought our forwards worked pretty hard during the match. They did a much better job of pressuring the defenders and preventing them from making clean passes when the defenders cleared. We do need to work on our forwards continually moving and rotating to the right defender. Since we focus on the second and third runs with our forwards instead of the breakaways we need to work on our under laps and given gos. But I would grade our forward as a B+ for this game.

I knew TSC would be marking our outside mids and try to take them out of the game. Our outside mids need to recognize this and use the over lap runs from our outside defenders. This will keep the defense more honest and open the game back up for our outside. We did have quite a few out side seem openings but failed to get them the ball. They had a few good runs but I want to see them take more shots from the outside. Over all a B for them.

The Center mids worked pretty hard against some talented mids from TSC. Our mids worked real hard to penetrate but at times worked more east and west instead of north and south. They did a better job against WSC of rotating the field but we struggled with playing 360 degrees when we needed to. Of all our positions I did think our center mids did a better job of challenging and winning the 50-50 balls. So I will give them a B+

Outside defenders struggled a little to get into the game the first few minutes but then came on pretty strong. I thought Meagan, Kate and Donut worked pretty hard in this game. They made good over lap runs and a solid job of playing cover defense. They did make some attempts from the outside but the shots were pretty rough. We still need to work on getting width and depth before the ball is heading in their direction. So I will give them a B+

Center defenders played much better this game than we did our last game. Good job of coming in the from the 2nd defender role and we gave up great depth to kill penetration. I would have liked to seen a better job of using the goalie when killing the through lane passes but attempts were made. At times we work harder than when we need to when killing a run. A B as well.

Goalies did get a lot of action but not too bad. I still want them in the game more managing the business vs me. Not too bad a job of getting the ball to feet when they did get a shot on them. B for the goalies.

If this were a boxing match I would have given the first half to TSC and the second half to us. I think we out shot them in the second half 5 or 6 to 2.

Over all not too bad for our first match of the spring. With the weather warming and our eventual return back to sugar creek some of the bugs will work out.

WSC summary will come tomorrow.
thanks
Doug